Like many snowbirds, The Cleveland Orchestra finds time in the winter to escape to Florida for a series of concerts around the state, but it requires a lot more than booking a flight and hotel rooms to get more than 100 musicians and their instruments in place for each concert in Sarasota, Miami and West Palm Beach.
Two heated and humidity-controlled 53-foot tractor-trailer trucks carry most of the instruments, wardrobe and other equipment needed, which is easier than the efforts that go into overseas tours in Asia or Europe.
At a time when many major American and European orchestras have discontinued touring because of the growing expense, Cleveland Orchestra is one of perhaps a dozen that regularly travel around the country, and Florida is often one of its destinations, said Joe Short, stage manager for the Cleveland Orchestra.
Sarasota Concert Association, which is marking its 80th anniversary season, is one of the reasons the ensemble and other major symphonies continue to return to the community. It most recently presented Cleveland in 2018. Plans for a 2021 performance were canceled because of COVID.
“They’re truly one of the world’s great orchestras, and whenever our calendars align we want to bring them to Sarasota because they have such a devoted following here,” said Executive Director Linda Moxley.
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A season of classics
Cleveland is one of three major orchestras that are part of SCA’s 80th season and its Great Performers Series, which includes the Czech National Symphony Orchestra on Feb. 13, led by Jan Chalupecký, performing works by Dvořák and Mozart and the National Symphony Orchestra, led by Music Director Giandrea Noseda, performing Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 and Korngold’s Violin Concerto with soloist Hilary Hahn.
The season began Jan. 15 with pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet and continues with a sold-out program featuring cellist Yo-Yo Ma performing his favorite pieces and sharing stories about his career on Feb. 27. On March 14, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons will be performed by baroque violinist Theotime Langlois de Swarte with Les Arts Florissants.
In addition, SCA presents a series of Music Matinees featuring Sarasota-area artists in free programs that are a successor to the former Munchtime Musicales concerts.
The focus is musicians from the Sarasota region. They’re mostly classical but we do a variety of styles for these free concerts,” Moxley said.
This year’s series, all at 2 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church, opens with Sarasota Opera Studio Artists on Jan. 29, flutist Karen Large with pianist Heidi Louise Williams on Feb. 19 and jazz singer Synia Carroll on April 23. A fourth program on March 26 is still to be announced. Tickets are free but reservations are required and are available 30 days before the programs.
“They are really popular and they fill up pretty quickly 30 days out,” Moxley said.
For ticket information on the Great Performers Series and Music Matinees call 941-966-6161 or go to scasarasota.org.
A long history of presenting concerts
The Sarasota Concert Association was started in 1938 by the Sarasota Women’s Club when it sponsored a Community Concert Course that became the Community Concert Association and part of the Columbia Artists Management’s Community Concerts Program.
“It was the place to be for many years and the motto was ‘A Carnegie Hall in every town,’” former SCA president Joy McIntyre has said.
Columbia Artists Management arranged concerts around the country with local groups to promote the artists it oversaw. Concerts were mostly presented in the Sarasota Municipal Auditorium until 1970 when they moved to the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall.
For years, there was a waiting list for tickets because the subscription series would generally sell out months in advance. SCA eventually separated from Columbia Artists Management and planned its own concert seasons. Moxley was hired in 2020, just after the start of the COVID pandemic, as its first paid executive director.
“Prior to my arrival four years ago, it was all completely done by volunteer board members. The fundraising, ticket sales, marketing, artist selection and all the things backstage were done by volunteer board members,” Moxley said.
Getting Cleveland Orchestra on the road
The Cleveland Orchestra will perform at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 26 in Van Wezel, led by guest conductor Kahchun Wong of Singapore in a program of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto (performed by violinist Sayaka Shoji) and Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition.” The same concert will be presented Jan. 24-25 at Knight Concert Hall in the Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami, and Jan. 27 at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach. The orchestra then stays in Miami Jan. 31-Feb. 1 for side-by-side concerts mixing Cleveland artists with the young musicians of the New World Symphony.
“This is our second year of playing side-by-side concerts. It’s a great opportunity for New World Symphony folks to see the preparation involved. They rehearse with us, perform with us for the whole time,” said Short, the stage manager.
Short is responsible for making sure everything is in place for each concert, including getting the instruments and wardrobe from city to another. He arranges for those heated trucks and makes sure they’re properly loaded because of the high value of the instruments on board.
“Some of the violinists hand carry their instruments and it’s very common for flute players to hand carry, but the overhead bin space on planes is at a premium and we encourage people to let us take them,” Short said.
In the middle of a brutal winter, he is able to monitor the temperature on the trucks, and there’s less concern during unloading in Florida where temperatures are usually more moderate.
“Winter is not always an ideal period for traveling, but Florida isn’t so bad. Going to Carnegie Hall is a great example of how we have to manage what’s going on with the truck,” he said. “We keep the truck at the right temperature and the doors are sealed, but when the truck pulls up on 56th street and the doors open, we have to move quickly so the instruments aren’t staying out in the cold.”
For overseas travel, he has to book space on cargo planes and the orchestra usually deals with a freight company. Planning for an overseas tour might take a year or more while domestic travel takes about six months.
Having worked in many of the venues where the orchestra travels, including Van Wezel, Short has gotten to know the staff and crews, but he never takes anything for granted, especially since one of his first overseas tours in 2001.
He had arranged a cargo flight to carry cases with instruments and wardrobe from Toronto to Frankfurt for a concert while he and the musicians left first on a passenger plane.
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“We were told when we landed that not all of the gear got on the flight. Some of it was bumped to make room for live lobsters,¨ he said. “We only had half our gear in Vienna.” When he arrived, he spent hours trying to arrange for another flight to get everything in place for a 10 a.m. rehearsal.
“We got done setting the stage at 10:01. We barely got the rehearsal done,” he said. Ever since, cargo flights go first.
“We learn some lessons. You don’t know what you don’t know. That was the last time we ever flew before the cargo left.”
Cleveland Orchestra
Presented by Sarasota Concert Association. Kahchun Wong, guest conductor, Sayaka Shoji, violin soloist. 7:30 p.m. Jan. 26, Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, 777 N. Tamiami Trail. Tickets are $69-$159. 941-966-6161; scasarasota.org
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